From a judge's rejection to $30M in assets: First Church United Methodist's day in court

The clock is ticking for a downtown Oklahoma City church seeking to exit the United Methodist Church and another week will go by as the congregation attempts to sever ties.

The trustees of First United Methodist Church of Oklahoma City on Friday made some headway in their disaffiliation pursuit when a judge rejected the Oklahoma United Methodist Conference's request to toss the church's lawsuit out of court.

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The regional conference's attorney Ross Plourde argued that the courts had no role to play in an ecclesiastical matter.

"It's fairly clear that what they're trying to get you to do is to tell the Church, the annual conference, how to run itself and we don't think that's appropriate," he told Oklahoma County District Court Judge Aletia Timmons.

Timmons sided in favor of First United Methodist Church of Oklahoma City, informally called First Church, by ruling that the issue was a essentially a property dispute. Cara Nicklas and Cheryl Plaxico, First Church's attorneys, said the issue at hand was not a doctrinal issue but mainly about the First Church congregation being able to cut ties with the United Methodist Church while still retaining their church's assets.

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Trustees of First Church, filed suit on June 1, accusing regional conference leaders of violating their contract with the church to prevent the congregation meeting at 131 NW 4 from severing ties with the United Methodist Church. At that time, First Church's trustees were also granted a temporary restraining order to prevent regional leaders from evicting the congregation and seizing roughly $30 million in assets, including the church building at the corner of NW 4 and Robinson Avenue.

A hearing over the dispute took up most of the day Friday. It was tentatively continued to July 14, when more witnesses are expected to take the stand.

Hardy Patton, a First Church trustee, said the congregation is hoping that Timmons will ultimately decide to declare the church disaffiliated by ruling that regional leaders disregarded the disaffiliation agreement that they themselves created, preventing First Church from being among 55 churches that ended their denominational affiliation at an April meeting. First Church members held a prayer rally and took part in a prayer march around their church building on Thursday, hoping for a favorable outcome at Friday's court session.

"Had it not been for the conference's breach of contract, we would be disaffiliated and this would all be behind us.," Patton said.

The international United Methodist Church ― one of Oklahoma's largest faith groups ― is in the midst of a schism that has been gradually widening over the course of several decades. Disagreement about the scriptural compatibility of same-sex marriage and the ordination of openly gay clergy is at the heart of the divide. The issues are coming to a head for some churches, prompting them to seek to leave the denomination before a Dec. 31 provision runs out, allowing them a "gracious exit" with their assets.

Study of a study

A viability study requested by regional conference leaders was the main focus of Friday's hearing. First Church's attorneys Nicklas and Plaxico said the congregation had set a meeting to vote on disaffiliation in January, but it was postponed by regional leaders because they wanted to conduct a study measuring the church's viability in terms of finances, attendance and ministry. In court documents, trustees accused regional leaders of using the viability study to "slow play" the congregation's efforts to disaffiliate so that the church would be unable to meet the critical year-end deadline to cut denominational ties while keeping their property and other assets.

Kent Fulton, an attorney who serves as the Oklahoma United Methodist Conference's chancellor, said regional conference leaders were given the discretion to call for a viability study, but First Church's attorneys argued against his assertion.

The question of First Church's viability was discussed by Chris Harris, one of First Church's first witnesses. As the widow of the late Nick Harris, who once served as First Church's longtime senior minister, she said she was personally insulted by the idea that First Church's viability would be questioned. She said the church which formed six days after the Land Run of 1889 had persevered through wars, the Great Depression and the Oklahoma City bombing, among other things, and there was "always a remnant" of church members who remained committed to keeping the historic church's missions and ministries alive.

Meanwhile, First Church's legal counsel tried to show that the church had been singled out for the study. Several people whose Oklahoma churches have already disaffiliated said regional conference leaders did not ask their congregations for a viability study. Thomas Junk, a member of First Methodist Church of Tulsa, and the Rev. Daniel Rickman, who withdrew from the United Methodist Church earlier this year, said their churches did not have to meet a viability study requirement. Rickman serves as pastor of two former United Methodist churches in Nowata and Delaware, Oklahoma.

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Plourde, the regional conference's attorney, said between 18 and 21 churches had viability studies required, but he did not name the churches on Friday.

Another issue that was discussed was how much time the viability study was supposed to take. In their petition, First Church trustees said they had repeatedly contacted regional church leaders about getting the study completed by the May deadline set by the regional conference, but to no avail.

The Rev. Craig Stinson, a retired United Methodist minister and former connectional ministries director for the regional conference, said regional leaders asked him to conduct the viability study. He said he was able to meet initially with First Church leaders and he also met with regional conference leaders by March. Stinson said he was supposed to have a second meeting with conference leaders but scheduling issues prevented that from taking place.

Timmons asked him if they had ever considered conducting meetings online, noting how much time had elapsed since March. Stinson said he thought the viability study wouldn't take too much longer to complete once the required meetings took place, potentially giving First Church enough time to meet a Sept. 6 deadline that would allow the church to be considered for formal disaffiliation in October.

Stinson was also asked about First Church's finances, in terms of the apportionments Oklahoma United Methodist churches are required to pay to the regional conference. Once attorney Plaxico showed the retired minister that First Church paid more apportionments percentage-wise than some other churches in its area, including much larger congregations, he agreed that the statistics were interesting.

The First Church congregation was the first congregation in Oklahoma to head to court to resolve their dissatisfaction with regional conference leaders' handling of disaffiliation matters. Church of the Servant, 14343 N MacArthur, has since also filed a lawsuit against the regional conference. On July 3, they argued that regional leaders also are keeping them from moving forward with disaffiliation.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Judge rules that courts may decide United Methodist church's exit suit